News: Suppliers
17 August 2022
Unitemp supplies ESPEC fast-rate environmental test chamber to Warwick University
Led by professor Phil Mawby, the Power Electronics Applications and Technology in Energy Research (PEATER) team in the School of Engineering at the UK’s Warwick University has installed and commissioned a new ARS060680 fast rate environmental test chamber of Japan-based ESPEC, supplied by specialist environmental engineering company Unitemp Ltd.
As part of a suite of equipment funded through Driving the Electric Revolution (DER) as part of its main centers of expertise initiative, the new chamber will support research and development on wide-bandgap semiconductor technologies in power electronics machines and drives (PEMD). This tranche of equipment augments a well-established cleanroom for die processing as well as an epitaxy capability for silicon carbide (SiC).
The new ARS 060680 ultra-fast-rate environmental stress chamber has a temperature and humidity range of +10°C to +95°C/10% to 98%rh with a refresh rate of 15K/min. It will be used to stress the semiconductors and invertors specifically for automotive applications.
“We wanted a chamber that provided us with maximum flexibility, allowing us to undertake a multitude of tests including high- and low-temperature storage, thermal cycling and temperature and humidity stress testing,” says Mawby.
The emphasis at PEATER is to develop a facility for reliability and testing of assembled power devices, modules and assemblies. Industry already has access to these facilities and PEATER is providing both the expertise and facilities to evaluate new ideas, assemblies and integrations for use in the fast-growing automotive sector.
www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/eng/research/grouplist/electricalpower/peater
